We’ll start with this notion that since no one would make a profit otherwise, that it is ok to take something that belongs to someone else. Like it or not, music, games, and software are the creative property of the makers. By downloading them, you are benefiting from someone else’s work without paying any sort of compensation. If nothing else, you are disrespecting the developer. But more likely, you are cheating them out of profit. They didn’t make whatever you are downloading so that you could use it for free, or it wouldn’t be pirating to download it. If nothing else, you pay the developer for the time and effort they put into the item, if not for the quality of the item itself. Furthermore, this argument completely overlooks another side of pirating, the side in which people stop buying products because they can get them for free. To argue that anyone and everyone that pirates only pirates things they wouldn’t buy if they couldn’t pirate is absurd. Leafy’s paper points this out unintentionally but doesn’t seem to act on the notion, when he points out that anyone pirating often pirates mass quantities. I’m not going to believe that a person who illegally downloaded five hundred songs wouldn’t have bought a single one of them if they couldn’t get them for free.

And then we have the issue of, what do we do about people who do pirate rather than buy? We know they exist, and I’m willing to be in large quantities, so do we let them slide because some people pirate stuff they wouldn’t buy normally? To assume that pirates only pirate things they wouldn’t normally buy is assuming too much of the human conscience. It’s like saying that since poor people steal out of necessity, all stealing should be ok. It doesn’t add up. We have to draw a line somewhere, and since anyone can argue intentions after the fact, that line is likely to be pretty absolute. Anyone can say, after being caught, “Well, I wasn’t going to buy it otherwise.” But, really, with piracy as a considered option, we don’t really know if we would have bought it or not, had piracy not been an option.

Now, we have the issue of Leafy’s “word of mouth” assertion, that piracy makes music more popular. Only problem is, sure, if you pirate a song to a friend and he thinks the song is cool, you’ve promoted the artist, but what stops him from turning around and pirating other songs by that artist. He already pirated one, why buy others when he can get them for free? So while songs are popular, they aren’t being bought as much, because there is a free way to attain them. And pirating something to “test” it is absurd. I mean, what? Are you going to pay for it after the fact if it works? No. There is already a system for testing products, trials and demos aside. It’s called returning a product. You usually have a time span of something like a month to two months to return products that don’t satisfy or are defective. So if you want to really test the product, you buy it, and if it doesn’t pass these tests, you take it back and get your money back. How many people download songs, decide they are good, and then buy the songs already located on their PC? It isn’t logical. Why pay money for what you already have? That is how pirating takes money away from developers.

And, of course, there was an assertion that pirating was somehow good for gamers, but bad for everyone else. So tell me, how is starving independent game stores that are already barely making end’s meat of profit helping the game industry, and thus gamers, at all? Short term satisfaction, long term damage. Independent game stores only make any real profit by buying used games for cheap and then turning around and selling them for much more than they bought them. Here’s how it works. Independent game stores buy games from retailers for, let’s say $45, and then sell them for $50. That’s $5. That’s if they sell. And since independent stores are expected to have even unpopular games, chances are, half the merchandise doesn’t sell. So let’s say a game store buys 200 games. That’s $500 profit and $4500 loss, for a net gain of -$4000. Now, the game store also buys 200 used games for $5 each, and turns around and sells them for $25 each. Now, let’s assume they sell 75 of these games. That’s $1500 and $750, for a total net gain of $750. In this model, the game store doesn’t stay afloat and closes. Now, in reality, they buy and sell much larger numbers, and probably sell a large portion of the new games they buy, but the point stands that game stores make almost nothing on new games unless they sell in huge quantities, which is why they buy games for ridiculously low prices and then sell them for much higher prices. But if we start pirating games, even if we pirate just old games that we’d only buy used anyway, we take away the real main source of profit for game stores. And when those start to close down, gaming is reduced to the same state as comic books, with devoted comic stores few and far between, and only well established and well funded games ever making it into the display cases at places like Walmart and Target, starving the industry of creativity because no one wants to take a risk.

Overall, I think it is pretty clear that while pirating doesn’t feel like stealing, it is, and while it provides wonderful short term benefits, in the long run, it does hurt the industry.

It's Korn that does all the fucking torrenting.And I'm pretty sure those sites have corrupted files.The more he torrents, the slower the computer gets.Combine that with the fact that he watches so much God damn porn, and that our computer has no virus protection, he may as well be fucking this thing in the ass with a cattle prod.

I hardly buy anything because I'm broke. I just make due without. But the point stands that if the retailers go out of business, we'll be left to contend with either Steam or Walmart, and I'm not overly fond of either of those options.

Rotaretilbo wrote:I hardly buy anything because I'm broke. I just make due without. But the point stands that if the retailers go out of business, we'll be left to contend with either Steam or Walmart, and I'm not overly fond of either of those options.

I will stick with my garage sales. They seem to be more reliable then the Devils store. That and I just dont use Steam as I rarely download stuff unless I know exactly whats in it. That means game updates are about it.

Personally, in terms of pc games, I really only buy games ill play. I probably have some. 25 game downloads under my belt. My most played games are eve amf call of duty. Eve is subscription and I bought cod after playing the entire campaign on a pirate copy.

When it comes to music, I really don't have the money to pay for all the mp3s but I can afford concert tickets to those that are truly good. And statistics show that cd sales may be down but concert ticket sales ate way up.

Rotaretilbo wrote:The way NT pirates isn't all that bad, pirating music to test for possible concerts, and buying the games he pirates that he really enjoys. But he is an exception, not an example, in pirating.

I disagree. Pirating shitty games is not better than pirating good ones. Industry analysts are still seeing that statistic and it's scaring them away from the PC.

and the analysts only affect the shitty game companies. The pros look at their profits and work from there. If its profitable and they have fans, they continue.

but this brings me to a rant I saw on a tutorial for converting videos for ideal playback on the Storm. He was talking about how when you purchase tv shows and such online, you're pretty much screwed. amazon videos won't play on your ipod, and itunes videos won't play anywhere except Ipod and appleTV, because of the stupid DRM shit that only gets in the way of legitimate use. More DRM doesn't affect piracy, since the elite pirates strip the DRM and redistribute. Thus, in this individual writing the rants mind, the industries way of coping with piracy is MAKING him pirate.

I hate to break it to you, but those shitty game companies is what holds up the industry.

Also, it's not the developers' choice whether or not to stick to the pc, it's their publisher's choice, and their publisher, who is likely also connected to shitty companies, is likely to shy away from the PC.

in the case of DRM, though I agree that some DRM is intrusive, just because a product is faulty does not mean you can just steal the product. don't get it if you feel it's intrusive. I know GTA IV has secu-rom, but I'm still gonna buy it.

like, my mobile media player is my phone. Itunes is finally doing DRM free music, but DRM still exists on videos. Thus, I can't have any videos on my phone that were legally obtained because the market doesn't even allow me to.

and I find that DRM really is only there to fuck with legitimate purchases. Bioshock had an installation limitation which only messed with people that legitimately wanted to install it on all of their computers, but low-and-behold, not a single pirate copy contains that limitation. Same with SPOREs weird trojan drm thing. Pirate copy doesn't have that.

pirate movies don't have any of the nonsense FBI warnings and other things as well.

Pirating is definetly a really big problem for multiple reasons but heres one that has especially pissed off some of my friends and myself...Some new games for P.C. have an instalation limit (aka they can only be installed so many times before the CD key goes blank)this is due to people pirating and copying games, so now that (example) new Call of Duty game that just came out that takes up 13 gigs on ur computer and u dont play anymore u cant uninstall cause uve done that 4 times already and if u do it again u cant reinstall it

ReconToaster wrote:People who pirate games really sicken me. They are contributing to the downfall of PC gaming, and they are showing no respect for the industry which they owe so much to.

I have never pirated a single game. Those who have should be ashamed. I don't care if you "only pirate bad games." Those crappy games are what gives the industry the money to spend on good ones.

ReconToaster wrote:

Pirating is also not technically stealing, because I'm just downloading something, I'm not taking it away from someone.

You are gaining access to creative property without paying its creator. It is stealing.

Only a handful of people have gotten in trouble for pirating, so I'm not exactly worried about that.

soooo... because you don't get caught it's ok to do? Have a little honor and respect dud.

When it's outside of social issues... I find myself agreeing with this guy. Sorry Dud, Piracy is stealing.

And there's this one British sitcom I've been trying to find. It parodied one of the 'Downloading is stealing" commercials you see on DVDs.

"You wouldn't steal a car.""You wouldn't steal a DVD.""You wouldn't kill a policeman.""And then you wouldn't steal his helmet.""And then you wouldn't crap in his helmet.""And then you wouldn't deliver it to his grieving widow.""And then you wouldn't steal it again!""Downloading is stealing, and when we catch you, you will suffer the consequences"*Shows a girl downloading a DVD, and then a SWAT officer behind her, pistol raised.*Commercial ends with her facedown on the keyboard, with blood spreading through the keys.

Lord Pheonix wrote:I downloaded some old ass games like

Black&White2ResidentEvil1

Now tell me, you guys ever see these games at your local game store for me to pick up?

It's called Amazon.com. Honestly, if you aren't going to enjoy the games, why play them? I only buy the games I research and know I will like.

VaultingFrog wrote:

Rotaretilbo wrote:I hardly buy anything because I'm broke. I just make due without. But the point stands that if the retailers go out of business, we'll be left to contend with either Steam or Walmart, and I'm not overly fond of either of those options.

I will stick with my garage sales. They seem to be more reliable then the Devils store. That and I just dont use Steam as I rarely download stuff unless I know exactly whats in it. That means game updates are about it.

Good to see you around.

But I don't have the connection speed for steam. I have Halo PC, StarCraft, AoE II, Homeworld, and some of my brother's games on CD. All legit... Technically.

I wore out the original StarCraft CD, and I'm working on a third generation copy... soon to be a fourth generation.

KristallNacht wrote:and the analysts only affect the shitty game companies. The pros look at their profits and work from there. If its profitable and they have fans, they continue.